Costa del Sol

Present Day

Violet Fair

"You owe me, Violet," he said harshly. He had both of his hands on either side of me, and was leaning down in such a way that he stood over me – literally – he caused me to look up as his form made a small arc over my body.

I was scared, but I forced myself to stay in control. "I don't owe you anything," I snarled. "You chose to let me go. You took everything from me, and now you think I owe you? You're not crazy, you're stupid."

Sephiroth's eyes widened for a moment, and then he grabbed me by the arms and slammed me against the door so hard that I screamed. We were back in that room in the inn, and I was helpless and frozen and alone. He leaned next to my ear and spoke, holding me up off of the ground tightly. My feet dangled below me, and I kicked them uselessly before he squeezed me into submission.

"I took almost everything from you. I left you one thing, and if you don't play nicely, I'll take that, too," he promised.

"Please," I whispered. "Please don't."

"Then be a good girl and do as I say," he hissed. He dropped me so suddenly that I screamed. The impact physically hurt, and I struggled to stand, but I found the room starting to spin as he stood over me, waiting.

I woke up very suddenly, Cloud standing over me. "Violet?" he asked. He was kneeling down next to me, and I was on the floor, blankets tangled around my feet. I must have been suspended in the net for some time before they finally worked loose – I could see that I'd fallen out of my bed now, but I was still coming off of the dream. I realized I was covered in sweat, and ran my shaking hands through my blonde hair, trying to give myself a second to come back to reality.

"Hey," he said softly. "You were having a really bad dream. I heard you from the next room," he informed me. He helped me up, waiting as I stumbled a bit, and then stood while I sat back down on the bed, cooling off.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just a little stressed out after the ship," I confessed. "It'll never be too long before I see him again," I said of Sephiroth. His voice gave me a chill I couldn't control, and I shivered in spite of the warm room.

"Tell me about it," he muttered. He looked at me, and then said, "You were saying, 'Please, don't' in your sleep – over and over again, actually. To the point where you were yelling. Is there... anything you want to talk to me about?" he ventured.

I looked at my lap. "I had a dream that someone was trying to hurt my son," I said in a low voice. It was a half-truth, but it would have to do. "I was begging them not to, but it didn't really seem to matter."

Cloud nodded. "I'm sorry that you have to experience that. I know you've got a lot to lose Violet; so does Barret, in that regard. But we're going to protect you – we're going to protect eachother. We'll see this through and then we can get you back home to him."

"I appreciate it, Cloud," I responded. "I miss him all the time. It's hard, but I just keep telling myself that it's only going to be a few weeks." I smiled a little. "He's probably having a ball at the Saucer anyways."

"How long were they supposed to be there for?" Cloud asked. "Didn't you say a week?"

"Yeah, or thereabout. He wanted to go to that place crazy bad; thank Gaia that they're taking him. I don't know if I could deal with all of the noise," I said with a small laugh. I was beginning to feel a lot better now, thankful that Cloud had been there to bring me out of the haze instead of having to go through it alone.

He got a faraway sort of look in his bright blue eyes. "He really... really looks like Zack," he added softly. "It's almost... hard for me to look at him. He has his eyes, you know. Mako eyes. If Shinra found out that he existed..." he trailed off. "I can't think of anyone in SOLDIER who had children. The program does pretty well at cutting you off from the world, so while I don't discount they exist, I would have assumed that Shinra would have taken... steps."

"I know what you're saying, Cloud. Luckily, on the books, I'm dead. I know that sounds bad, but nobody save you and Tifa know I'm alive. Zack's parents do, but Shinra doesn't care about them. They moved to Gongaga after Zack joined SOLDIER, and they're not on the radar as far as I can tell. As far as Shinra is concerned, I don't exist, and neither does he." It was a chilling thing to admit, but it was one that had crossed my mind before.

"That's good," he breathed. "But still, we'll be careful about your communication with him. I'll figure out a good way to do it for you that won't connect you to us." He put his hand on my shoulder and nodded. "We're going to head down to the beach. Tifa's already there, but she told me to come tell you when you got up. So now you're awake, and I'm telling you. See you in a while?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "And thanks... it's always really hard waking up from those things. I'm glad you were close," I told him.

"Hey," he said, pausing at the door with the knob in his grasp. "I have them to. I know how it feels." And he nodded and left me to myself, closing the door behind him.

I flopped back onto the bed and let out a long sigh. When we'd been on the cargo ship, Sephiroth had been there. Only, it didn't feel like him. He'd looked right at me – right at me. I couldn't get a read off of him, not like I had before. I always flickered back to the vision of him in his room, looking at me and desperately making me promise to run. I felt myself trying to find that version of him, but it wasn't there. It wasn't that it was lost; it simply was gone. All that was left was a thing, a shell of a man, and he sure was motivated to hold us back.

I forced the thoughts out of my head, unwilling to think about it any further. We had survived against the monster he'd left for us to destroy, and we were still on our way. We were several steps behind him, and we'd just have to deal with that for the time being. I got up and turned on the television, desperate for some sort of background noise that I could have to drone out my own problems.

I went into the bathroom and cleaned up, then pulled my swimsuit out of the shower where I'd hung it to dry. We'd all bought them in the hotel shop the night before, and I suddenly felt eager to feel the warmth of the sun and water and sand. I came back out of the bathroom, hands working a braid into my blonde hair, and stopped in front of the television. It was on a news channel, reporting about the recent events.

"We go live to Maria Branford, who's live on the scene with more details. Maria?"

"Thanks, Tom. I stand here in the hall of the Shinra penthouse, one of the most prestigious locations in all of Midgar City. Inside, the officials are investigating the sudden and tragic death of Serena Shinra. The coroner's reports say it was a single bullet to the back of the head, done execution style, and they have placed her time of death on Thursday around 6 AM. It was the day after her father's funeral, and the day before her brother's inauguration to become the president. President Shinra was not available for any comments at his time, but our thoughts here at SHN-5 are with him in his time of need.

"The company has marked this as another terrorist attack by the group known as AVALANCHE, along with the untimely murder of our former president this past Tuesday. If you know anything or have any information at all that could lead to the capture of the terrorists, please contact Shinra officials at the number on the bottom of the screen. Back to you, Tom."

"Well, it's a very sad day here for us in Midgar City. Serena's memorial will be held on Saturday at 4 PM on the front steps of the city hall. She was twenty-four," he concluded. "After this break, how safe is your drinking water? Shinra City officials give these tip for ensuring you're protected."

I turned off the set wordlessly. I knew that Cloud and Tifa and their friends hadn't killed either of those people, but the heat coming off of it would be bad. Rufus would use it as a campaign to hunt them down if he could help it. I got changed and ran outside, dropping down in the sand next to Tifa.

"Serena Shinra is dead," I gasped, tired from running the gauntlet of sand down to the shore.

Tifa's head snapped up so fast she almost fell out of her chair. "What?" she barked. She whipped her sunglasses off and then lowered her voice. "How can you be sure? And why?"

"It's all over the news," I said. "This is bad, Tifa. Really bad. They're blaming AVALANCHE."

"How did she die? We know the president was killed by Sephiroth, but his daughter... She was a socialite. She wasn't really connected to the company. I mean, Rufus is still alive..." she trailed off.

"A single bullet to the back of the head," I responded. "It wasn't him. But if she was so unimportant, why would someone want to kill her?" I asked. "It seems so senseless."

"It's all senseless," Tifa said sharply. "But as for her? I don't know. There are probably a lot of people who aren't happy with the fact Rufus is in charge now. Maybe they're going after his family to hurt him? Even in the press photos though, they were never close. There have been rumours that even get down into the slums about the hate between the two of them. Evidently it was pretty legendary, so I don't feel like that would be the way to get to Rufus," she trailed off. She sucked in a deep breath. "I don't know, but I'll tell the others. We've really got to watch our asses if they're going to blame us for every little thing that happens," she said with a frown.

"Yeah, sorry to kill your mood," I said sadly.

"You didn't kill anything. Look, sit here, get a gorgeous guy to come bring you a drink with an umbrella, and relax. We've got only a day here before we need to go, so enjoy it. We can deal with everything else tomorrow." She grinned at me and turned her head back, reclining her chair to stretch out.

"I - " I started.

"No," she commanded with a raised hand. She pointed it at me, despite still laying down with closed eyes. "Man. Drink. Umbrella. Relax."

I couldn't help but laugh, which caused her to smile some. "There's my girl," she said triumphantly.

In front of us, a volleyball whizzed by as Cloud chased it down the shore. He tripped and ate shit in the sand, sitting up with a faceful of it. We both burst out into laughter, and I could feel my fears melting away as the ice in Tifa's drink did the same. By the time we left Costa del Sol, I was revitalized somehow.

The next day, Cloud said he'd gotten inside information on where Sephiroth would be headed, and I felt that pit drop into my stomach again. When he told us we were going to North Corel, I felt even worse. The Golden Saucer was on the other side. Having Sephiroth's path of destruction so close to my son was chilling down to the bone, and I didn't have much to say after that.